Having a comprehensive throttle body rebuild has been at the top of the Yellow Peril’s “Should Have Sorted This Out Ages Ago List” for some time but various higher priority jobs and life in general simply got in the way.
Finally however, I had an email from Steve Winter at Jaz Porsche saying “Bring the car in and let’s get it sorted” and I was there like a shot to leave the car in his care.
The Yellow Peril was born in Stuttgart in October 1970 (Porsche 1971 model year). Shortly after her birth, she was shipped across the English Channel and delivered to AFN’s Falconworks Porsche Adoption Agency in Iselworth. She was subsequently registered and handed to her new carer in January 1971.
Let’s face it, asking how my ’71 911 was going at the November Porsche Club Out East meet was never going to elicit the response “Perfect Steve. Not a single thing wrong it but I think old cars can become interminably boring over time due to their relentless reliability” ……… was it?
To be fair – I did actually restrict my response to “Pretty good thanks apart from the need for a bit of minor clutch adjustment”.
Steve Winter being the true gentleman he is immediately told me to bring Yellow Peril up to his Jaz Porsche workshop in St Albans the following Saturday where he’d quickly carry out the necessary clutch adjustment.
Mild and sunny November weather was the final enticement I needed to go Out East with the Yellow Peril.
Nick and Ed Pike (organisers of the Porsche Club London Region) hunted down this great venue some months back and the 3rd Sunday in the month meet seems to have become very popular with club members. It’s far less frenetic than the former Smithfield venue i.e. no stroppy traffic wardens!
Whilst listening closely to the Yellow Peril’s engine earlier this week (as you do) – I noticed a bit of a mechanical clattering noise coming from left hand throttle body as I revved the engine using the throttle linkage.
This odd noise and the fact that the engine had gone a bit off-song since its trip to Le Mans Classic in early July prompted me to arrange a visit to see Steve Winter at Jaz Porsche for his expert opinion.
Having hummed and hawed about whether to go to this event or not I finally conceded the night before the last day and I’m glad I did.
I thankfully selected a less busy day and could circulate freely, snapping piccies of nice motors without having to electric-cattle-prod hordes of selfie-takers out of shot.
I was also able to see motors in motion on the Grand Avenue without having to reserve a fence-side viewing place an hour in advance of the demo runs and without having to resort to rugby scrum tactics to get to the front or a ladder to witness the action.
A rather annoying and inconsistent recalcitrance to rev has afflicted my old 911 for a some weeks. Having adjusted the choke and swapped the CDI box to no avail – Steve opted to swap the ignition coil on my latest visit to Jaz Porsche in St Albans as symptoms suggested insufficient spark.
The offer of spare tickets from Steve Winter at Jaz Porsche overcame any remaining indecision over whether to get up to Donington this year.
Opting to go on Sunday meant I could watch Steve and his co-driver Rob Williams compete in the GT & Sports Car Cup for Pre-’66 GT & Pre-’63 Sportscars.
It was also a good opportunity to meet up with old friends Ken, James & Kirk.
This could be the range of emotions that you’d expect to go through as an integral part of classic car ownership but in the context of this post they refer to remaining problems that had to be sorted out on my engine following its complete rebuild.
With the benefit of hindsight – driving the car to Le Mans in June 2014 before the engine was fully sorted and properly set-up wasn’t one of my better ideas!
Steve did his best to sort things out but both he and I were unaware of some underlying issues which impacted performance and smooth running during the trip.
Thanks to Steve’s perseverance in analysing the multiple, linked issues and sorting them out I now have a car which is running so much better than on the Le Mans trip that I barely recognise it. I just can’t stop grinning whilst driving it!